


Confrontation

by helena_s_renn



Series: Eleven Strings – yksitoista kieltä [2]
Category: Def Leppard, Sonata Arctica
Genre: Anger, Dubious Consent, Jealousy, M/M, Non-Consensual, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 17:43:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena_s_renn/pseuds/helena_s_renn
Summary: "...Joe suddenly spun and stopped Sav's progress. All around them but at a distance, he could hear the scurry and shuffle of hundreds of people moving..."When Joe suspects -knows- Sav's with someone else, he can't keep his mouth, or hands, to himself.





	Confrontation

**Author's Note:**

> In this, Sav and Jani are together, on tour with Def Leppard with Jani stepping in as Sav's bass tech but they have to hide their relationship due a non-fraternisation rule. _Band is band; crew is crew._
> 
> If you're extra-sensitive to dub-con / non-con, hit your back button. This story isn't nice.
> 
> As always, this is fiction. Never happened.
> 
> Beta by ChristianHowe. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

-2007

They took their final bows and ran off the stage. Their guitarists and drummer had already gone on ahead. Sav went last, closely following behind Joe, whose hair and suit jacket tails swung side to side with his movements. Absently, Sav wondered if the frontman's feet hurt, he was moving at such a sluggish pace. He could relate; his knees were burning, and the muscles in his thighs occasionally quivering from how many times he'd been up and down the various steps and risers. Getting older sucked. 

"I need to talk to you." As they filed down the dark, narrow passageway behind the stage, Joe suddenly spun and stopped Sav's progress. All around them but at a distance, he could hear the scurry and shuffle of hundreds of people moving in the arena.

"Can't it wait?" The audience had been enthusiastic and they were both soaked with sweat from the performance. Sav hated the stickiness of wet satin and leather clinging to him.

"No. Now." A three-inch height advantage loomed over him, narrowed, piercing eyes staring him down, Joe at his most implacable.

Sav sighed and crossed his arms, leaned one hip against a crate. "What?" He was quite sure he knew what. The past few days had been one staring contest after another, but if there had to be a stand-off, then he was going to make Joe start it. 

"Your new tech. With the red hair." 

"What about him? Did he cross you in some way?" Jani had said he had a temper. Sav hadn't really seen it. Stubborn streak, yes; shut down if pushed, yes. Violence, or even a smart mouth? Difficult to say, although he occasionally projected the aura of a simmering lava pit covered by a thin veneer of vulnerability. Those traits, Sav did not possess. Opposites and all that. 

Joe shook his head, as if in disbelief. "He's your..."

"Yes, my tech. My responsibility. He knows what he's doing. Have the others complained about him or something? What's the problem?" 

Something vaguely patronising, that's what it was in Joe's face. Sav recognised it. Pain and want and what Joe probably called love, no doubt. For god's sake, how many decades was this going to go on? Most of the time, Joe hid it well enough that Sav could ignore the undercurrent, but here it was again, reared up in his face so to speak. 

"You're lovers." 

"Ew, Joe. 'Lovers'," Sav sneered. His heartbeat lurched at being called out on it by a bandmate. Also, at the connotation of illicit activities, which he would label the best in his life. "Fuck off." 

Joe flipped his eyebrows once. "I knew it! I figured it out. He was in Milan last summer with his band. That's where you were that night, and then you had someone in your room. Him." The rasped-out suspicion twisted triumphant and sorrowful into the voice of the green-eyed monster. 

The whole story of Jani breaking his finger and Sav taking him to the A & E, Jani being drunk, then doped up on pain meds, lost his phone, needed somewhere to crash - all of that nearly tumbled from Sav's lips then, but he managed to hold his tongue. All it would sound like was that Sav had gone from Good Samaritan to picking up a wasted groupie, and then committing the sin of getting involved. "It's none of your business." 

"Like hell it's not!" Joe exploded, leaning closer. "You know the rules, written and unwritten. Anything that puts us at risk..." 

"Oh please! You brought your wife on the road with us, when you still had one." Low blow, but Sav was already past caring. "And your girlfriends when it suited you. So has everyone." 

"Yeah, well... I never asked any of them to play along with such a charade." Joe snorted. "Tech. Whatever." 

"Maybe because your birds had no talent for anything besides being your personal bed-warmers." That was unfair, Sav knew it was. Joe, whatever else he did, wasn't into stupid or uninteresting people, including his women. They weren't bimbos. He didn't even bother answering to the rest. If Jani had passed muster with Wolfie, then he was more than good enough. 

"You're an asshole." The American version sounded so much more obscene out of Joe's British mouth. "According to the 'Net, he's been some hotshot guitarist in the Finnish metal scene for the last ten years. Is that what you're into now, partying with kids half our age that you could never keep up with musically or in bed...?" 

Sav sucked in a breath, and started to push past Joe. He almost made it by, then found himself shoved back against a wall of black-and-silver boxes. Using his greater bulk and strength to lean on him, Joe held him in place. "I know what you're doing..." 

"You don't know shit." Sav was angry enough to spit, but he kept his voice ice cold. 

"...and I'm sorry you're still bleeding after so long but carrying on with this quirky little redheaded shit - who got sacked by his own band by the way - won't work." 

That was the final straw. "Won't work how? For once, I'm free of... of that. The past, and I know exactly what you mean, goddammit. Finally, after all this time. Something you could never help me with, huh? Oh, I know how bad you wanted to, you think you have all the answers, that I would be healed if I just bent over for you every night..." 

"No, Sav..." Joe's voice was agonised, his eyes over-bright. "If you would just let me--" 

"Don't say it!" Sav pushed hard, got free, backed away. "It's not welcome, don't you get that? And fuck your rules! We're not in some public school. In case you forgot," he thumped a fist on his chest, "founding member! Even before you." He would never let Joe forget that again. "That alone gives me some leeway, or I'm outta here. You're the only one who's noticed, or cares."

"Yeah well, where are the others? You can be replaced, too. Maybe your little boy-toy knows how to play bass. I bet he has faster fingers than you. Is that it?" 

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" The innuendo, the insult, the veiled threat, all of it. "I fucking dare you. And furthermore, I don't give a fuck. It would be nice not to have the constant hovering and your stupid moony cow-eyes." 

"The birds love my eyes." 

"Let them. I'm sick to death of them, and you. Constantly staring. We've always been mates, somehow, but I don't even know how we can even be that anymore. Just... back the fuck off." 

Joe leaned in again and kissed Sav's open, outraged mouth. In ten seconds, he got things he needed, that he knew he'd done without: Teeth nipping his earlobe hard with that hot, wet, squirming tongue licking out his ear canal. Joe had whiskey on his breath and Sav needed a drink. One hand shoved down the back of his pants and a finger wiggled up inside him with nothing more than spit to slick the way. Another hand unbuttoned him and grabbed his dick, which, to Sav's horror, responded by hardening. 

Joe pulled far enough away from his ear not to deafen him and muttered, all the while busy with the twofold assault, "He ever do this to you, huh? You're a tactile creature, need every orifice worked and filled, every inch of your skin touched. Oh, yeah, you can fuck like a beast, but you need to go arse-up, too... need to get dicked as good as you give it, you can't help yourself. Does he know that? 's he have a big dick, Sav? Bigger than mine?"

"Get off me!" Sav was desperate. To get away, to stop this, to come. Every effort to fight free seemed to turn into a friction-seeking grind. He hated how helpless he was in Joe's hands.

"No, no, no and no," Joe answered himself. "You mean, 'get you off'?" His tone was soft; his hands, anything but. Head tipped back against the make-shift wall, Sav gasped and closed his eyes. He did not want to see himself in this position. "That's what I thought. And you know what? If he can satisfy you, I'll back off." 

"I'm...s-satisfied...." Sav gurgled and made a liar of himself. Dammit, why was he reacting to this? The finger prodded the place inside him that made him squeal and Joe captured every sound with another kiss like warfare. 

Just before Sav reached the point of no return, Joe pulled away. "Not this time, you're not." He walked off, a jaunty swagger in his step. 

"Bastard," Sav hissed, slumping, barely staying on his feet. What a picture he must make, snarling, stage make-up running, clothes askew, the tip of his unwanted erection sticking out of his waistband just where Joe had left it. Fucking promoters and their VIP packages -- he was supposed to show up at the meet-and-greet within the next ten minutes. That'd never be long enough to find somewhere private, rub one out, and get himself together again. He could smell himself, and Joe on top of that, sweat and pheromones from both of them. He hated it. Fuck it, he would just have to be late. 

 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Any feedback is always appreciated.


End file.
